BOOKS BY PAT BROWN

How to Save Your Daughter's Life

Only the Truth

The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths

In The Profiler, Brown opens her case files to take readers behind the scenes of bizarre sex crimes, domestic murders, and mysterious deaths, going face-to-face with killers, rapists, and brutalized victims. It's a rare, up-close, first-person look at the real world of police and profilers as they investigate crimes - the good and bad, the cover-ups and the successes.

Killing for Sport: Inside the Minds of Serial Killers

Killing for Sport is the most valuable insight into the minds of serial killers you'll ever read. While other profilers tend to conceal the clear facts behind complex technical language and psychobabble, Pat Brown actually tells it like it is. Killing for Sport will intrigue you with its honest portrayal of the predator-next-door, how he hunts for his victims, why he likes to torture them, where he tends to stash their bodies, and more.

BOOKS WITH PAT BROWN

Interview with a Cannibal: The Secret Life of the Monster of Rotenberg

Stampf, a prominent German filmmaker and journalist, reveals the harrowing true-life account of a German computer company employee, Armin Meiwes, who killed a willing victim, Bernd Brandes, and ate him in a fetish ritual. Interviewing Meiwes in 30 sessions at a high-security prison, the author discovers a shy, pleasant man who entered into an agreement with a bisexual man he met on the Internet who wanted to be butchered and consumed. Stampf probes Meiwes's emotional isolation and the homoerotic fantasies of both killer and victim through talks with family, friends and experts, entering some very dark places of gay underground sadomasochistic sex rituals. Prepared with the aid of criminal profiler Brown, this bizarre and gruesome book spares no detail of the crime and the troubled psyches of the cannibal and the victim. It is not for the faint of heart.

Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill

Most men and women who aspire to be police officers begin their careers with a noble dream of community service, upholding the law, and helping those in need. Yet over time the rigors and emotional strain of dealing with society's worst element wear on even the most idealistic officers like a sheet of sandpaper, until what used to be a compassionate human being is slowly rubbed away. A few become corrupted and slip into criminal behavior, directly contradicting their oath to guard the public. Even worse, there are some who hide behind their badges to commit the most heinous crimes imaginable.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY PAT BROWN

Inside the Criminal Mind
Stanton Samenow

This revised edition of a 1984 study is long on assertion and short on evidence. Dr. Samenow, a clinical psychologist, is legitimately disdainful of explanations of criminal behavior that blame everyone (society, family, violent television, etc.) but the criminal for his actions, but his counter-arguments will persuade few. He makes frequent sweeping generalizations ("Even the most hardened criminals who spout anti-police rhetoric to one another recognize society’s need for police"), and provides nothing other than anecdotes in support of his position that all criminals break the law consciously and deliberately. A short new chapter on terrorism illustrates perfectly the limits of the author’s "methodology"—he defines the issue down to link Al Qaeda with any criminal whose actions frighten someone, and then simply discounts any outside influence as meaningfully contributing to the making of a criminal.

Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us
Robert D. Hare, Ph.D.

This work of pop psychology merits attention because Hare has pioneered in the field of psychopathy, which is still in a formative state. Psychopaths, he asserts, are neither sociopaths nor psychotics but rather are people who are well aware of the difference between right and wrong and ignore the distinction. Additionally, they are egocentric and have no feelings of empathy, guilt or remorse. They view others as potential victims, and they leave a trail of unhappiness behind them in those who have succumbed to their deceitful manipulations. Whether nature or nurture underlies their aberration is still uncertain; they are almost impossible to treat, according to Hare, because they are convinced that they have no psychological or emotional problems. Although, as he notes, much of the literature on psychopathy is scientific, Hare here presents material in a form accessible to lay readers.